THE NEKAAL OBSERVER January 2004 VOLUME 12, ISSUE 1 PO BOX 951, TOPEKA KS 66601 (785) 806-1177 www.nekaal.org The official newsletter of Farpoint Observatory and the Northeast Kansas Amateur Astronomers’ League 2003 NEKAAL Officers FROM THE P REZ : By Graham Bell President Graham Bell As we start 2004 we have several chal- nomical Society of Kansas City, and Ex- Vice-president Jerry Majers Secretary Bill Leifer lenges and a number of opportunities. ecutive Secretary of the Astronomical (Isn’t that how the first message of each League. She will be our February 26 fea- Board of Directors new year is supposed to start)? tured speaker. Chair Graham Bell Treasurer Walter Cole We are trying to improve the board’s Bill Leifer is continuing in his role as responsiveness to members. I’ll attempt to Observatory Director. I expect that the im- At Large publish a preliminary agenda well in ad- provements which he started last year will Janelle Burgardt David Ryan vance of each board meeting, and encour- continue. We are all benefiting from his David Costales Dan Tibbetts Julee Fisher Russell Valentine age all members to provide input into the efforts. Gary Hug agenda. I also encourage all members to Janelle Burgardt is again Astronomy attend those meetings and provide your Program Director . She has already set up Advisory Board input. the Club Observing and Open House Dr Steven Black (WU) We have set up a YAHOO group, NE- schedules (see page 8), and will be work- Dr Karen Camarda (WU) KAAL_MEMBERS, which will help us com- ing on other activities for the club and for Dr Darrell Parnell (WU Retired) municate with each other. Until we get the outreach. Jan also serves as the AL coor- Dr. Bruce Twarog (KU) Web Site set up with issues of the Ob- dinator, and is working with NASA on an- Dr. Sam Snyder (WU) server, I will be posting the PDF version to other new and exciting program for NE- the files section of NEKAAL_MEMBERS. KAAL. See board minutes on page 3. The NEKAAL Observer is the Check out http://groups.yahoo.com/ to see I am enthusiastic about 2004. It should official publication of the Northeast Kansas Amateur Astronomers’ how to get to the files section. If you don’t be a good year for NEKAAL, but we must League and Farpoint Observatory. find NEKAAL_MEMBERS in your Yahoo all work to make it good year. Support the NEKAAL, Inc. is an educational and groups, contact Bill Leifer to get you set Open houses, attend club observing ses- scientific nonprofit corporation up. sions, and recruit some new members. approved by the federal and state I am attempting to get a great list of Wouldn’t it be nice if there were enough governments. speakers lined up for this year. We will members so that dues alone could fully Written permission to reproduce kick off with Jackie Beucher, of the Astro- support Farpoint? or copy any part of this newsletter is not necessary with appropriate acknowledgements to the author and DUES ARE D UE : to The Observer . Please let the editor know if you use any material from the NEKAAL is now on a January to Janu- July 1, 2003 you should receive a note Observer. ary membership schedule. If you haven’t from Bill Leifer about the 2004 dues. Your articles and other paid your dues yet, you membership has Warning —. If dues are not paid by contributions to this newsletter are expired. See page 7 for dues amounts. February 28, you will be dropped from the welcome and encouraged. Please get Special Option — if you joined After membership list. them to the editor at least 6 days prior to the next scheduled meeting. Editor : Graham Bell In this issue… Meeting Schedules .................................5 12229 Blazingstar Rd From the Prez: ....................................... 1 Club Observing .......................................5 Maple Hill, KS 66507 Facilities Report ......................................6 (785) 256-6281 Dues Reminder ...................................... 1 [email protected] Sky Highlights for February .................... 2 ASKC Meetings ......................................6 AL00667—A Close Call? ....................... 2 Scientific American Special Report ........6 Board Minute Summary ......................... 3 February Calendar ..................................7 Member of the Important Tax Information ...................... 3 Meeting and Observing Schedules .........8 GAstronomical LeagueE Bell www.astroleague.org Flying in Formation ................................ 4 Whom do You Contact ............................8 Abbreviated Financial Statement ........... 5 Page 2 THE NEKAAL OBSERVER PO BOX 951, TOPEKA KS 66601 www.nekaal.org SKY H IGHLIGHTS FOR F EBRUARY : by Janelle Burgardt February 2 Neptune at conjunction February 6 Full Moon February’s full moon is called the Snow Moon or Hunger Moon February 13 Last quarter moon February 15 Neptune is 2 degrees north of Mercury February 20 New Moon February 22 Uranus reaches conjunction February 28 First quarter moon Planets Mercury —Low in the southeast before dawn early in the month, then lost in the sun’s glare Venus —Reaches -4.2 magnitude, visible in the western sky for 3.5 hours after sunset. Mars — Fades to magnitude +1.1, in Aries Jupiter —At magnitude -2.5 in Leo, rises around 8:30 on the 1 st , to just shortly after sunset at the end of the month. Saturn — Visible nearly all-night long, at magnitude 0.0, and with its rings tilted near maximum, a beautiful sight near the “feet” of Gemini. Uranus — Lost in the sun’s glare; at conjunction on February 22 Neptune — Lost in the sun’s glare; at conjunction on February 2 Pluto — Still near the sun, but in the morning sky by the end of the month. AL00667— A C LOSE C ALL ?: by Graham Bell One of the jokes among minor planet miss the earth. It didn’t take an astro- 18th, the MPC discarded LINEAR’s first researchers relates to the type of NEO physicist to figure this out, since the origi- observation. (near earth object) which concerns us. nal orbit indicated that collision would This little asteroid generated exactly NEOs and other minor planets are de- occur on the 15th. It Didn’t. While still 100 e-mails on the Minor Planet Mailing tected by watching their movement classified as a potentially hazardous as- List, most from professional astronomers across the background stars. The one to teroid, we are safe for at least a few arguing among themselves about the worry about is the one that doesn’t move years. Minor Planet Center’s (and LINEAR’s) much, it just keeps getting brighter, indi- What was the problem? The data policies and procedures. cating that it is moving directly toward us. from LINEAR were less than ideal. The Here was a case where the astrono- On January 13, just such an asteroid arc was too short for accurate calcula- mers may have overreacted, but fortu- was reported to the Minor Planet Center. tions, and there were many orbits which nately the press didn’t get into the act Discovered by LINEAR, the object fit the data. It turns out that their first ob- this time. seemed to have an orbit which would servation was off considerably, leading to A close call—no produce a collision with the earth within 2 incorrect orbit determinations. In fact, A close approach—yes . or 3 days. Fortunately, the object was with the added data from the 16th and relatively small, about the size of a typi- cal living room, and would cause only local damage. LINEAR submitted 4 ob- servation measurements of AL00667 (their designation). A number of possible orbits could be computed from these 4 observations. The observations, typical of LINEAR’s data, were spaced at 30 minute intervals, yielding an arc of only 1.5 hours. Others found this object on the 14th, 16th and 18th, helping to refine the orbit. If was now obvious that AL00667 would January 2004 VOLUME 12, ISSUE 1 Page 3 BOARD M EETING S UMMARY , J ANUARY 11, 2004 : Bill Leifer (summarized by Graham Bell) Present : Graham Bell, Jan Burgardt, David Costales, Walt Cole, Gary Hug, Bill Leifer, Jerry Majers, David Ryan, Dan Tibbetts, Russell Valentine Absent : Julee Fisher 1. Treasurer’s Report Account balances presented. (see page 5) 2. FPO Director Report Report on Mail Box and other repairs and maintenance (See Facility Report, page 6) 3. Old Business Internet access –Graham hasn’t made any progress lately. Russell has been recruited to assist with this activity. Telescopes — Graham Bell and David Costales will move telescopes to Farpoint for Observing sessions. Assignments — An assignment list is being created. It will be a default agenda item under Old Business for future meetings. 4. New Business Member List on Web —Member lists will not be put on the neekal.org website to reduce spam. A list of board members, without additional information will be provided. YAHOO Group Mail List — Bill will set up NEKAAL_MEMBERS as a Yahoo Group. This will be used for general communication among members, and will be used for sharing of files among members. Until such time as The Observer is available on nekaal.org, the files section of NEKAAL_MEMBERS will be used for The Observer. Farpoint Keys — Keys are being made available to board members who do not have current keys (Ryan, Costales, Tibbetts). Support at Observing Weekends — We need to be sure someone with a key is available on all club observing weekends. We will use NEKAAL_MEMBERS to coordinate club observing sessions. Janelle will continue to coordinate Open House sessions. (See note on page 5, gb). Distribution of The Observer — Graham will take care of printing, and will upload a PDF version to NEKAAL_MEMBERS. Bill will provide mailing labels. Rita Ryan will distribute The Observer at meetings, and one of us will mail those not picked up at the meetings.